Candidate – Recruiter Relationships: Overrated?

What is the ultimate value you provide to candidates as a recruiter?

I want you to really think about that question before proceeding. In this post, there will be more questions raised than answers provided. Please take a moment to ensure that you have your thinking cap on and that your mind is open.

Who Defines Value?

From the candidate’s perspective, what do you think the real value provided by a recruiter is? There are countless recruiting articles and blog posts (such as this one referencing Guanxi) that will tell you that the relationship is more important than the transaction itself. But for the majority of candidates, is it? Really?

I’m a little bit of a Lean freak. One of the core principles of Lean philosophy is Value – every activity in a business should be scrutinized for how it adds value to the final product or service provided to the customer. A lot of activities previously thought to be essential in a business turn out to be non-value adding when evaluated from the perspective of the customer.

There’s the key – “when evaluated from the perspective of the customer.” It’s one thing for people in the recruiting profession to talk about the value of relationships – but it’s ultimately the customer who defines value.

Imagine this scenario: Recruiter A (”John”) has been developing a professional relationship with a “passive” candidate (”Brett”) for the past year, but John has never been able to find precisely the right opportunity for Brett to make a move. Recruiter B (”Jenny”) finds an old version of Brett’s resume and calls him with an opportunity that happens to very closely align with exactly what Brett has been looking for. Within 1 week, Brett interviews for Jenny’s opening, receives and accepts an offer.

From Brett’s perspective – which recruiter provided more value?

How Do You Define a “Relationship” With a Candidate?

I think that “relationship” is one of the most overrused words in recruiting – it’s slung around with reckless abandon, yet it is rarely defined or explained.

And I can see why. The definition of “relationship” in Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary isn’t very helpful: “the state of being related or interrelated, the realtion connecting or binding participants in a relationship, a state of affairs existing between those having relations or dealings.” Umm…okay.

However, the the definition of “relation” (the root of “relationship”) is more helpful: ”an aspect or quality (as resemblance) that connects two or more things or parts as being or belonging or working together or as being of the same kind; the state of being mutually or reciprocally interested (as in social or commercial matters)”

And there it is. To paraphrase – a connection built by working together in mutual interest.

In this sense, a relationship between a recruiter and a candidate can be defined as a connection built as a result of them working together towards the common goal of the candidate making the next step in their career.

How do you define a “relationship” with a candidate?

Relationships – How Many and How Deep?

For a recruiter to ever hope of assisting candidates with making the next step in their career, certainly they will have to get to know each candidate to at the very least assess their current situation, understand the candidate’s motivators, and learn specifically about what the candidate would ideally like to be doing.

But in order to qualify as a “relationship,” exactly how deep does the interaction between a recruiter and a candidate have to go?

In his “The Death of Sourcing” post on RecruitingBlogs, John Sumser explained his belief that “Next generation recruiting is about relating intimately, not about mutual discovery. It’s about fidelity and long term value exchange, not one night stands.”

In response Paul Davenport commented, “By the numbers: 1 hire requires approx. 10 interviews (phone and full face-to-face). 10 interviews require 40 profiles (resume, candidate profile completed by Recruiter). 40 profiles require 100 solid “hits” (candidate generation through passive and active search). A typical Recruiter carries 20-25 Reqs at any given time and they are rarely all for the same exact description. However, let’s assume for our purposes these req’s are identical. 20 req’s times 40 profiles = 800 profiles…people YOU claim are interested in long-term “fidelity”. Let’s make this easier by cutting everything in half. You still claim that success can only come with intimate, professional relationships with over 400 people. In the ever-changing real world, skills, priorities and hiring targets are constantly moving. How many people do you honestly think a professional can have a true intimate and long-term professional relationship?”

While the numbers and ratios are debatable, Paul raises an excellent point – any recruiter who is responsible for 20 or more positions per month (let alone at one time) will be required to contact a large number of candidates every month in an effort to find and hire the right people.

Some points to ponder:

Is a recruiter expected to develop intimate and long term relationships with every great candidate they come into contact with? Is that realistic or even possible?

How many “deep and lasting” candidate relationships do you think can any given recruiter hope to effectively maintain?

Do relationships between recruiters and candidates necessarily have to be “intimate and long term?”

Do you think that candidates are actually looking for “deep and lasting” relationships with recruiters?

Exactly how “deep” does a relationship between a recruiter and a candidate have to be in order to provide value to the candidate?

Ultimately, what do candidates want from recruiters?

“Transactional” Recruiting

I’ve read many recruiting articles that take the position that “relationship recruiting” is superior to the lowly ”transactional recruiting.” That certainly sounds good (it probably feels good to say as well), but I have yet to see those concepts clearly defined.

Hitting up the dictionary again, “transaction” can be defined as “a communicative action or activity involving two parties or things that reciprocally affect or influence each other; something transacted, an act, process, or instance of transacting.”

“Transact” is defined as “to carry to completion, to carry on the operation or management of.”

Hmm…action or activity whereby two parties reciprocally affect and influence each other – nothing intrinsically evil there, in my opinion. What do you think? Is there anything wrong with carrying the relationship to “completion” (a hire, perhaps?) and carrying on the management of the recruiter-candidate relationship?

How effective or productive would a recruiter be if they only focused on building relationships and never sought to achieve hires (transactions) – helping candidates take the next step in their careers? Isn’t that what recruiters do?

Final Thoughts

If a recruiter happens to find and call a candidate with the right opportunity at the right time, yet hasn’t developed a deep and long term relationship or value exchange with them, are they a bad recruiter? Is the recruiter providing any less value to the candidate? Would the candidate care?

Do all candidates need a new best friend, or another recruiter to have a relationship with?

It’s nice to have a relationship with your doctor, but if they don’t ever actually help you when you need them, how good of a doctor are they? Would you look down upon your doctor for being “transactional” if they spent most of their time helping you when you needed them?